Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction

Allen C. Guelzo

Description

Beneath the surface of the apparently untutored and deceptively frank Abraham Lincoln ran private tunnels of self-taught study, a restless philosophical curiosity, and a profound grasp of the fundamentals of democracy. Now, in Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction, the award-winning Lincoln authority Allen C. Guelzo offers a penetrating look into the mind of one of our greatest presidents.

If Lincoln was famous for reading aloud from joke books, Guelzo shows that he also plunged deeply into the mainstream of nineteenth-century liberal democratic thought. Guelzo takes us on a wide-ranging exploration of problems that confronted Lincoln and liberal democracy--equality, opportunity, the rule of law, slavery, freedom, peace, and his legacy. The book sets these problems and Lincoln's responses against the larger world of American and trans-Atlantic liberal democracy in the 19th century, comparing Lincoln not just to Andrew Jackson or John Calhoun, but to British thinkers such as Richard Cobden, Jeremy Bentham, and John Bright, and to French observers Alexis de Tocqueville and François Guizot. The Lincoln we meet here is an Enlightenment figure who struggled to create a common ground between a people focused on individual rights and a society eager to establish a certain moral, philosophical, and intellectual bedrock. Lincoln insisted that liberal democracy had a higher purpose, which was the realization of a morally right political order. But how to interject that sense of moral order into a system that values personal self-satisfaction--"the pursuit of happiness"--remains a fundamental dilemma even today.

Abraham Lincoln was a man who, according to his friend and biographer William Henry Herndon, "lived in the mind." Guelzo paints a marvelous portrait of this Lincoln--Lincoln the man of ideas--providing new insights into one of the giants of American history.

About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction

Allen C. Guelzo

Author Information

Allen C. Guelzo is Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College. He is the author of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America and Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, both winners of the highly prestigious Lincoln Prize.

Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction

Allen C. Guelzo

Reviews and Awards

"Written with grace and flair, this brief biography of Lincoln draws on the author's unexcelled knowledge of the subject to offer incisive interpretations of Lincoln's early life, his antebellum career, his ideology of free labor, his rise to the presidency, and his leadership in a war that preserved the United States as one nation and freed it from the blight of slavery."--James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

"The small volume provides an impressive amount of historical and intellectual context, and offers an expert summary of Lincoln's thought." --Indiana Magazine of History

"Successfully distills an epic life into the essence of [the] man in [a] pocket-size volume." - Washington Times

"Guelzo's book will fill a notable void in the always expanding field of Lincoln studies. This new volume from Oxford should enjoy pride of place as the best short biography of Lincoln available."--Rick Beard, Executive Director, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum